Memorials to the Past, Southern Conservatives, Southern Culture Laid Bare, Southern Patriots, Southern Statesmen, Southern Unionists 
Comments Off on No Lost Cause No Lost Cause
Gen. Bradley T. Johnson was chosen orator at the dedication of the South’s museum in Richmond, February 22, 1896. It was the Confederate White House and home of Jefferson Davis and family, and the mansion was given by Richmond’s City Council to the Confederate Memorial Literary Society as a place for “the reception of Confederate relics and records.”
No Lost Cause
“Our memorial will be here in Richmond, the heart and grave of the Confederacy, and around it hovers the immortal soul of love and of memory, which for all times will sanctify it to all true men and women. They will know that it is a memorial of no “Lost Cause.”
They will never believe that “we thought we were right,” immortally right, and that the conqueror was wrong, eternally wrong.
The great army of the dead is here, the sentiment of the living is here, the memories of the past are here, the monuments of the future will be here. As all roads lead to Rome, so in the ages to come all ties of memory, of sentiment, of heart and of feeling, will vibrate from Richmond.
As every follower of the prophet at sunset turns his face to Mecca, and sends up a prayer for the dead and the living, so everywhere in this great South Land, which was the Confederacy, whenever the trumpet call of duty sounds, when the call to do right without regard to consequence rings over the woods and the meadows, the mountains and the valleys, the spirit of the Confederacy will rise, the dead of Hollywood and of Oakwood will stand in ranks, and their eternal memory will inspire their descendants to do right whatever the cost of life or fortune, of danger and disaster.
Lee will ride his bronze horse, Hill (A.P.) will be by his side, Stonewall will be there, Stuart’s plume will float again, and the battle-line of the Confederacy will move forward to do duty, justice and right. The memorial of the Confederacy is here, not built by hands – made of memory and devotion. What else could it be?”
(No Lost Cause; Dedication of the South’s Museum, Gen. Bradley T. Johnson, Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume XXIII, R.A. Brock, editor, excerpts pp. 371-372)